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First IPhone reviews: Good News for Steve Jobs

But even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles.

Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer.Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

Even a prodigy needs to grow up. I'd love iPhone to deliver my company mail, tap into a faster data network and provide expandable memory, instant messaging and GPS. The price could be lower, too. My wish list aside, iPhone's splash of a debut is worthy of the attention it is receiving.

If you’re looking for quibbles, flaws and omissions, you’ll certainly find them in this first version of the iPhone. (I’ll get to these below.) But the bottom line is that the iPhone is a significant leap.It’s a superbly engineered, cleverly designed and imaginatively implemented approach to a problem that no one has cracked to date:merging a phone handset, an Internet navigator and a media player in a package where every component shines, and the features are welcoming rather than foreboding. The iPhone is the rare convergence device where things actually converge.